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GETTING TOGETHER 



GETTING 
TOGETHER 



BY 

IAN HAY 

Author of ** The First Hundred Thousand," 
"A Safety Match." etc. 



\x^xX, -, ^^^r"^ 






GARDEN CITY BOSTON 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE HOUGHTON MIFFLIN 
& COMPANY COMPANY 

1917 



^ 5'^3 



— ^ 



t 



Copyrighty 1917, by 
Ian Hay Beith 

All rights reserved, including that of 

translation into foreign languages, 

including the Scandinavian 



FEB 17 1917 



CI.A455558 

i f 



CHAPTER ONE 



CHAPTER ONE 

For several months it has been 
the pleasant duty of the writer of 
the following deliverance to travel 
around the United States, lectur- 
ing upon sundry War topics to 
indulgent American audiences. No 
one — least of all a parochial Briton 
— can engage upon such an enter- 
prise for long without beginning 
to realise and admire the average 
American's amazing instinct for 
public affairs, and the quickness 
and vitality with which he fastens 
on and investigates every topic 
of live interest. 

Naturally, the overshadowing 



4 GETTING TOGETHER 

subject of discussion to-day is the 
War, and all the appurtenances 
thereof. The opening question is 
always the same. It lies about 
your path by day in the form of a 
newspaper man, or about your bed 
by night in the form of telephone 
call, and is simply: 

'' When is the W^ar going to end? " 
(One is glad to note that no 
one ever asks how it is going to 
end: that seems to be settled.) 

The simplest way of answer- 
ing this question is to inform 
your inquisitor that so far as 
Great Britain is concerned the 
War has only just begun — began, 
in fact, on the first of July, 1916; 
when the British Army, equipped 
at last, after stupendous exertions, 
for a grand and prolonged offensive, 



GETTING TOGETHER 5 

went over the parapet, shoulder 
to shoulder with the soldiers of 
France, and captured the hitherto 
impregnable chain of fortresses 
which crowned the ridge over- 
looking the Somme Valley, with 
results now set down in the pages 
of history. 

Having weathered this conver- 
sational opening, the stranger from 
Britain finds himself, as the days 
of his sojourn increase in number, 
swept gently but irresistibly into 
an ocean of talk — an ocean com- 
plicated by eddies, cross-currents, 
and sudden shoals — upon the sub- 
ject of Anglo-American relations 
over the War. Here is the sub- 
stance of some of the questions 
which confront the perplexed way- 
farer : — 



GETTING TOGETHER 

1. " Do your people at home ap- 
preciate the fact that we are 
thoroughly pro- Ally over here?" 

2. "How about that Blockade? 
What are you opening our mails 
for— eh?" 

3. "Would you welcome Ameri- 
can intervention?" 

4. "What do you propose to 
do about the submarine menace?" 

5. "You don't really think we 
are too proud to fight, do you?" 

6. "Are you in favour of Na- 
tional Training for Americans?" 

7. "Do you expect to win out- 
right, or are both sides going to 
fight themselves to a standstill? " 

And 

8. "Why can't you Britishers 
be a bit kinder in your attitude to 
us?" 



CHAPTER TWO 



CHAPTER TWO 

Let us take this welter of inter- 
rogation categorically, and en- 
deavour to frame such answers 
as would occur to the average 
Briton to-day. 

But first of all, let it be remem- 
bered that the average Briton of 
to-day is not the average Briton 
of yesterday. Three years ago 
he was a prosperous, comfortable, 
thoroughly insular Philistine. He 
took a proprietary interest in the 
British Empire, and paid a muni- 
ficent salary to the Army and Navy 
for looking after it. There his 
Imperial responsibilities ceased. As 



10 GETTING TOGETHER 

for other nations, he recognized 
their existence; but that was all. 
In their daily life, or national 
ideals, or habit of mind, he took 
not the slightest interest, and said 
so, especially to foreigners. 

"I'm English," he would explain, 
with a certain proud humility. 
"That's good enough for yours 
truly!" 

This sort of thing rather per- 
plexed the American people, who 
take a keen and intelligent inter- 
est in the affairs of other nations. 

But to-day the average Briton 
would not speak like that. He will 
never speak like that again . He has 
been outside his own island: he 
has made a number of new ac- 
quaintances. He has been fight- 
ing alongside of the French, and 



GETTING TOGETHER 11 

has made the discovery that they 
do not subsist entirely upon frogs. 
He has encountered real Germans, 
at sufficiently close quarters to 
realize that the "German Menace" 
at which his party leaders en- 
couraged him to scoff in a bygone 
age was no such phantom after 
all. Altogether he is a very dif- 
ferent person from the complacent, 
parochial exponent of the tight- 
little-island theories of yester-year. 
He has encountered things at 
home and abroad which have 
purged his very soul. Abroad, he 
has seen the whole of Belgium 
and some of the fairest provinces 
of France subjected to the gross- 
est and most bestial barbarity. 
At home, he has seen inoffensive 
watering places bombarded by pi- 



12 GETTING TOGETHER 

rate craft which came up out 
of the sea hke mahgnant wraiths 
and then fled away hke panic- 
stricken window-smashers. He 
has seen Zeppehns hovering over 
close-packed working-class dis- 
tricts in industrial towns, raining 
indiscriminate destruction upon 
men, women, and children. In 
fact, he has seen things and suf- 
fered things that he never even 
dreamed of, and they have broad- 
ened his mind considerably. 

Last year, under stress of these 
circumstances, the average Briton 
relinquished his age-long propen- 
sity to "let George do it," and 
evolved a sudden and rather in- 
spiring sense of personal respon- 
sibility for the safety and welfare 
of his country. He no longer 



GETTING TOGETHER 13 

limited his patriotism to the roar- 
ing of truculent choruses at music- 
halls, or the decorating of his 
bicycle with the flags of the Allies. 
He went and enlisted instead. 
Now he has faced Death in person 
— and outfaced him. He has 
ceased to attach an exaggerated 
value to his own life. Life, he 
realizes, like Peace, is only worth 
retaining on certain terms, the 
first of which is Honour, and the 
second Honour, and the third 
Honour. 

Finally, he regards the present 
War as a Holy War — a Crusade, 
in fact. He went into it with no 
ulterior motives: his sole impulse 
was to stand by his friends, France 
and Belgium, in the face of the 
monstrous outrage that was being 



14 GETTING TOGETHER 

forced upon them. He is out, in 
fact, to save civilization and human 
decency. Consequently he finds 
it just a little difficult to understand 
how a warm-hearted and high- 
spirited nation can be expected to 
remain "neutral even in thought." 
With this much introduction to 
the man and his point of view, we 
will allow him to speak for himself. 



CHAPTER THREE 



CHAPTER THREE 

"Do I realize that you are pro- 
Ally over here? Well, somehow I 
have always felt it, but now I know 
it. When I get home I shall rub 
that fact into everyone I meet. 
What our people at home don't 
grasp is the fact that America 
is inhabited by two distinct races — 
Americans, and others. The 
others appear to me — mind you, 
I'm only giving you a personal 
impression — to consist either of 
alien immigrants who have not 
yet absorbed their new nationality, 
or professional anti-Ally propa- 
gandists, or people of mixed na- 

17 



18 GETTING TOGETHER 

tionality with strong commer- 
cial interests in Germany, whose 
heart is where their treasure is. 
These make a surprising amount 
of noise, and attract a dispro- 
portionate amount of attention: 
but I know, and I intend the 
people at home to know, that the 
genuine American is with us in 
this business heart and soul. 

"What's that.^ The Blockade? 
Yes, I want to talk to you about 
that. I take it you will admit that 
a blockade is a justifiable expedi- 
ent of war. There have been one 
or two of them in history. In 
the American Civil War, for in- 
stance, the North established a 
pretty successful blockade against 
the Southern ports. British cot- 
ton ships were everlastingly trying 



GETTING TOGETHER 19 

to run through that cordon. In 
fact, I rather think we exchanged a 
few cousinly notes on the subject. 
Of course blockades are irksome 
and irritating to neutrals. But 
we look to you here to endure the 
inconvenience, not merely as one 
of the chances of war, but rather 
to show us that you in this coun- 
try do recognize and indorse the 
ideal for which we are fighting. 
We are fighting for an ideal, you 
know: I think the way the old 
country came into this war, all 
unprepared and spontaneously, 
just because she felt she must 
stand by her friends, was the finest 
thing she has ever done. Of course 
no sane person expected America 
to saddle herself gratuitously with 
a European War — without good 



20 GETTING TOGETHER 

and sufficient reason, that is — 
but we in England would like 
to feel that your acquiescence in 
the inconveniences caused by 
our blockade is your contribu* 
tion to the cause — your slap on 
the back, signifying: — Go in and 
win! 

*'Open your mails? Yes, I'm 
afraid we do. And we find a 
good lot inside them! Do you 
know, there is a great warehouse 
in London filled from top to bot- 
tom with rubber, and nickel, and 
other commodities for which the 
Hun longs, disguised as all sorts 
of things — rubber fruit, for instance 
— taken from the most innocent- 
looking parcels — all dispatched 
from the United States to neutral 
countries in touch with Germany? 



GETTING TOGETHER 21 

But we are most punctilious about 
it all. Every single article re- 
tains its original address-label, and 
will be forwarded direct to its 
proper consignee, directly the war 
is over. Can you beat that.^ 

*' Would we welcome Interven- 
tion.^ My dear sir, is it likely .^^ 
Supposing you had been caught 
entirely unprepared, and had been 
sticking your toes in for two years 
— fighting for time and playing a 
poor hand pretty well — and were 
at last ready to hit back, and hit 
back, until you had rendered your 
opponent incapable of further out- 
rage, and were in a fair way to 
fix this war so that it never could 
happen again — would you wel- 
come Mediation, or offers of Medi- 
ation? I think not. 



22 GETTING TOGETHER 

"Submarines? We aren't at- 
taching too much importance to 
submarine frightf ulness. It is true 
we have lost a number of merchant 
ships, and that a number of inno- 
cent hves have been sacrificed. 
But let us put our hearts in the 
background for the present and 
look at the matter from the eco- 
nomic and military point of view. 
We have lost, in twenty-seven 
months, about one tenth of our 
original merchant fleet. Against 
that you have to set the fact that 
we have been steadily building 
new merchant ships during the 
same period. The dead loss of 
merchandise involved amounts to 
about one half per cent, of the 
total value — ten shillings in every 
hundred pounds; or fifty cents 



GETTING TOGETHER 23 

per hundred dollars. That won't 
starve us into submission. 

"But the Germans will build 
more and more submarines.^ Very 
probably. Still, I think we can 
leave it to the British and French 
navies to prevent undue exuber- 
ance in that direction. Our sail- 
ors have not been exactly garrul- 
ous during this war, but I think 
we may take it that they have 
not been entirely idle. Has it 
ever occurred to you that although 
there are hundreds of Allied war- 
ships patrolling the ocean to-day, 
you hardly ever hear of one being 
torpedoed by a submarine.'^ Pas- 
senger ships and freight ships 
suffer to the extent I have quoted, 
but not the warships. Why is 
that? Don't ask me: ask Jellicoe! 



24 GETTING TOGETHER 

But it rather looks as if the sub- 
marine, as an instrument of naval 
warfare — as opposed to a baby- 
killing machine — had rather failed 
to deliver the goods. 

"The Deutsehland? I take off 
my hat to Captain Koenig: he is a 
plucky fellow. The U 53? I have 
no remarks to offer, except to 
repeat my previous reference to 
baby-killing machines. As for the 
presence of these two vessels in 
American waters — in American 
ports — I won't presume to offer 
an opinion. Still, not long ago the 
U 53 sank six British or neutral 
vessels off the American coast, just 
outside territorial waters. For- 
tunately for the passengers, an 
American cruiser was in the neigh- 
bourhood, to guard against viola- 



GETTING TOGETHER 25 

tion of American waters, and 
picked them up. But the whole 
incident looks to me hke a dehber- 
ate German plan to jockey an 
American cruiser into becoming a 
German submarine tender. 

"Let me see— what else? Too 
proud to fight? Not much! We 
know the American people too 
well. Besides, we suffer from poli- 
ticians ourselves, and know what 
political catch-phrases are. So 
don't let that worry you. 

*' National Training for America? 
There I am neither qualified nor 
entitled to offer advice. I know 
the difficulties with which the 
true American has to contend in 
this matter. I know that this 
vast country of yours is more 
of a continent than a country, 



26 GETTING TOGETHER 

and that so long as your enormous 
tide of immigration continues, it 
will be a matter of immense dif- 
ficulty developing a national sense 
of personal responsibility. I also 
know that your Middle West is 
inhabited by people, many of 
whom have never even seen the 
sea, who are rendered incapable, 
by their very environment, of 
realizing the immensity of the ex- 
ternal dangers which threaten their 
country. These must see things 
differently from the more exposed 
section of the community, and I 
see how dangerous it would be to 
enforce upon them a measure 
which they regard as ridiculous. 
But on this great subject of Pre- 
paredness, I can refer you to the 
case of my own country — not as 



GETTING TOGETHER 27 

an example, but as a warning. 
We were caught unprepared. In 
consequence, we had to sacrifice 
our best, our very best, the kind 
that can never be replaced in any 
country, just because they hurried 
to the rescue and allowed them- 
selves to be wiped out, while 
the country behind them was 
being aroused and prepared. That 
is the price that we have paid, 
and no ultimate victory, however 
glorious, can recompense us for 
that criminal waste of the flower 
and pride of our youth and man- 
hood at the outset. 

"Do we expect to win the war 
outright? Yes, we do." 

It is true that the Central 
Powers have recently succeeded in 
devastating another little country, 



28 GETTING TOGETHER 

though they have not destroyed its 
army. On the other hand, during 
the past few months the AUied 
gains on the Somme have included, 
among other items, a chain of 
fortresses hitherto considered im- 
pregnable, four or five hundred 
pieces of artillery, fourteen hun- 
dred machine-guns, and about 
ninety-five thousand unwounded 
German prisoners. Moreover, the 
French at Verdun have regained 
in a few weeks all the ground that 
the Crown Prince wrested from 
them, at the price of half a million 
German casualities, in the spring. 
German colonies have ceased to ex- 
ist; German foreign trade is dead; 
the German navy is cooped up in 
Kiel harbour; and Germany is so 
short of men that she has resorted 



GETTING TOGETHER 29 

to outrageous deportations from 
Belgium in order to obtain indus- 
trial labour. On the other hand, 
our supply of munitions now, at 
the opening of 1917, is double what 
it was six months ago, and our new 
armies are not yet all in the field. 
The British Navy, despite all 
losses, has increased enormously 
both in tonnage and personnel. 
So I don't think we are fought to 
a standstill yet. 

"Yes, you are right. All this 
bloodshed is dreadful. But re- 
sponsibility for bloodshed rests 
not with the people who end a 
war but with the people who began 
it. As for discussing terms of 
peace now, what terms could be 
arranged which Germany could 
be relied upon to observe a mo- 



so GETTING TOGETHER 

ment longer than suited her? 
Have you forgotten the way the 
War was forced on the world by 
Prussian militarism? The trick 
played on Russia over mobiliza- 
tion? The violation of Belgian 
neutrality? Malines, Termonde, 
Louvain? The official raping in 
the market-place at Liege? The 
Lusitania? Edith Cavell? The 
Zeppelin murders? Chlorine gas? 
The deportations from Belgium 
and Lille? Wittenburg typhus 
camp, where men were left to rot, 
without doctors, or medicine, or 
bedding? How can one talk of 
"honourable peace" with such a 
gang of criminal lunatics? Ask 
yourseK who would be such a 
fool as to propose to end a war 
upon terms which left the safety 



GETTING TOGETHER 31 

of the world exposed to the pros- 
pect of another outbreak from the 
same source? 

*'You, sir? Why cant you peo- 
ple in England be a bit kinder in 
their tone to us here in America? 
Ah, now you are talking! Let us 
get away from this crowd and go 
into the matter— get together, as 
you say." 



CHAPTER FOUR 



CHAPTER FOUR 

So the average Briton and the 
average American retire to a se- 
cluded spot, and "get together." 
The American repeats his question : 

"Why can't your people over 
there be a bit kinder? Why can't 
you consider our feelings a bit 
more? You haven't been over 
and above polite to us of late — 
or indeed at any time." 

"No," admits the Briton 
thoughtfully, "I suppose we have 
not. Politeness is not exactly our 
strong suit. In my country we 
are not even polite to one another!" 
(Try as he will, he cannot help 

35 



36 GETTING TOGETHER 

saying this with just the least air 
of pride and satisfaction.) "But 
I admit that that is no reason 
why we should be impolite to other 
nations. The fact is, being al- 
most impervious to criticism our- 
selves, we naturally find it dif- 
ficult to avoid wounding the 
feelings of a people which is par- 
ticularly sensitive in that re- 
spect." 

"Very well," replies the Amer- 
ican. "Now, we want to put 
this right, don't we?" 

"We do," replies the other, 
with quite un-British enthusiasm. 
"No one who has spent any time 
as a visitor to this country could 
help " 

"Why then, tell me," inter- 
polates the other, "what is at the 



GETTING TOGETHER 37 

back of your country's present re- 
sentful attitude toward America?" 

The Briton ponders. 

"Didn't someone once say," 
he repKes at last, "that *he that 
is not for us is against us?' That 
seems to sum up the situation. 
We on our side are engaged in a 
life-and -death struggle for the 
freedom of the world. We know 
that you are not against us; still, 
considering the sacredness of our 
cause, and the monstrous means 
by which the Boche is seeking to 
further his, we feel that you have 
not stood for us so out and out as 
you might. Only the other day 
your Government announced that 
in their opinion it was time that 
both sides stated plainly what 
they were fighting for ! Now " 



38 GETTING TOGETHER 

The other checks him. 

" Don't you go mixing up the oflS- 
cially neutral American Govern- 
ment," he says, "with the American 
people, or the American people with 
the inhabitants of America. In 
many districts of America, the bal- 
ance of power lies with people who 
have only recently entered the coun- 
try, and who have not yet become 
absorbed into the American people. 
As for our present Government, 
it was put into power mainly by 
the people of the West — ^people 
to whom the War has not come 
home in any way — and the Gov- 
ernment, having to consider the 
wishes of the majority, naturally 
carries out the instructions on its 
ticket. That is how I, as an aver- 
age American, sense the situation. 



GETTING TOGETHER 39 

However, that is not the point. 
Listen ! 

"You say that America has 
not helped you very much? Let 
us consider the ways in which 
America could have helped. Mili- 
tary aid.f^ Well, of course that 
is out of the question so long as 
we remain neutral, as we agreed 
just now we certainly ought to 
remain. Still, there are more than 
twenty-five thousand American 
citizens serving in the Allied Armies 
to-day. Did you realize that.^^" 

"I did not," says the Briton, 
interested. 

"Well, it is true. There are 
battalions in the Canadian Army 
composed almost entirely of men 
from the United States. Others 
are serving in the French and 



40 GETTING TOGETHER 

British Armies. Then there is the 
American Flying Corps in France." 

"Yes, I have heard of them. 
Who has not ? Proceed ! ' ' 

"Industrial help, again. We 
are making munitions for you, 
night and day. It is true that 
we are being paid for our trouble; 
but the cost of living has risen al- 
most as much here as in your own 
country. Also let me tell you that 
we are making no munitions for 
Germany, and would not do so, 
money or no. The same with 
financial help. Loan after loan 
has been floated in this country 
for the Allied benefit. How many 
loans have been raised for Ger- 
many? Not one! That is not be- 
cause German credit is so bad, but 
because no true American will 



GETTING TOGETHER 41 

consent to lend his money to 
such a cause. Beheve me, the 
attempt has been made, and strong 
influence brought to bear, more 
than once, but the result has 
been failure every time. 

"Red Cross Work, again. There 
are hundreds of Americans driving 
ambulances in the Allied lines 
to-day, and hundreds of American 
women working in Allied hos- 
pitals. There are complete hos- 
pital units over there, equipped and 
maintained by American money 
and American service. Have you 
ever heard of the Harvard Unit, 
for instance.^" 

"Vaguely. Tell me about it." 
"Well, I mention the Harvard 
Unit because it was about the 
first; but others are doing nobly 



42 GETTING TOGETHER 

too. Let Harvard serve as a sam- 
ple. At the outbreak of the War, 
Harvard put down ten thousand 
dollars to equip and staff the 
American Ambulance Hospital in 
Paris. Then, in June, 1915, Har- 
vard took over one of your British 
Base Hospitals, with thirty-two 
surgeons and seventy-five nurses. 
That hospital has been maintained 
by Harvard folk ever since; they 
go out and serve for three months 
at a time. Harvard also sent an 
expedition to fight typhus in Ser- 
bia. Harvard's casualty list, in 
consequence, has grown pretty 
long. Not a bad record for one 
neutral University, eh? I don't 
seem to remember your Oxford or 
Cambridge sending out a medical 
unit to help us, when we were fight- 



GETTING TOGETHER 43 

ing for a moral issue too, away back 
in the 'sixties under Lincoln." 

''I knew nothing of all this. 
People at home must be told," 
says the Briton, earnestly. 

"Or," continues the American, 
we can take the work of the Amer- 
ican Ambulance Field service. The 
American Ambulance Field Ser- 
vice with the Armies of France 
has carried over seven hundred 
thousand wounded since the be- 
ginning of the war; their sections 
and section leaders have been six- 
teen times cited for valuable and 
efficient work; fifty-four of their 
men have been given the Croix de 
Guerre for bravery, and two the 
Medaille Militaire. Three have 
been killed. The Society has at 
present over two hundred ambu- 



44 GETTING TOGETHER 

lances at the front, besides stafiF 
and other cars attached to different 
sections. This Service, which, at 
the beginning of the war, was a 
subsidiary part of the American 
Ambulance Hospital at Neuilly 
has for the past year been self- 
supporting, and although still co- 
operative with the Hospital, has 
its own administration and head- 
quarters, and its own maintenance 
fund. If you require any further 
information on the subject, read 
* Friends of France,'^ or 'Ambul- 
ance No. 10,'^ both of which books 
will stir you not a little. 

"Talking of books, if you want 

^Friends of France: The Field Service of the Amer- 
ican Ambulance described by its members. (Hough- 
ton Mifflin Co., $2.00. Limited Edition, $10.00) 

^Ambulance No. 10. By A. Buswell. (Houghton 
Mifflin Co., $1.00) 



GETTING TOGETHER 45 

to read a genuine American's opin- 
ion of the Allies and their cause, 
read * Their Spirit/' by Judge 
Robert Grant. And if you want 
to know what another prominent 
American, who formerly admired 
and reverenced Germany, thinks 
of Germany now, read Owen Wis- 
ter's ' Pentecost of Calamity.' ^ Or, 
if you want a complete exposure 
of German aims and methods 
in this war, read James M. Beck's 
The Evidence in the Case'.^ 

*'Now a word concerning War 
Relief Societies in general. (There's 

^Their Spirit: Some impressions of the English 
and French dm-mg the Summer of 1916. By Robert 
Grant. (Houghton Milflin Co., 50c.) 

^Pentecost of Calamity. By Owen Wister (Mac- 
mUlan Co., 50c.) 

3 The Evidence in the Case. By James M. Beck. 
(Putnam, $1.00). 



46 GETTING TOGETHER 

more to hear than you thought, 
isn't there?) I cannot possibly 
give you details about them all, 
because their name is legion. For 
instance, this printed list contains 
the names of a hundred and ten 
such societies; and there are others. 
As you see, it covers Armenian, 
Belgian, British, French, Italian, 
Lithuanian, Persian, Polish, and 
Russian Relief enterprises of every 
kind. German Relief Societies? 
Yes, throughout the United States 
there are eleven German and Aus- 
trian Societies altogether; but they 
are all under purely Teutonic 
management, as a glance at the 
names of their supporters will 
show. America, as such, stands 
aloof from them. 

" Let us have a look at the purely 



GETTING TOGETHER 47 

British Relief Societies, which na- 
turally will interest you most. 
There is The American Women's 
War Hospital at Paignton, Devon- 
shire, directed by Lady Paget, 
herself an American, and sup- 
ported by American contributions. 
It is a far cry from America to 
Australia, but there is an Aus- 
tralian War Relief Fund in Amer- 
ica. Then take the British War 
Relief Association of America. 
This Association occupies an en- 
tire floor in a lofty building on 
the busiest stretch of Fifth Avenue. 
All day and every day they work 
away, cutting surgical dressings 
at the rate of nine thousand yards 
a week. They also collect and 
despatch comforts of every kind, 
from motor ambulances to anti- 



48 GETTING TOGETHER 

septic pads. The rent of their 
premises is eight thousand dollars 
a year; but they get the whole 
place free. Their landlord, an 
American citizen, has given them 
that floor for the duration of the 
war, as his contribution to the 
fund. Isn't that pretty fine? 
Again, there is an American branch 
of your own Prince of Wales' fund. 
There is a United States Guild 
for British Soldiers' Comforts; 
there is an Indian Soldiers' Fund 
Committee, and many others. 
These, as you see, are purely pro- 
British organizations, but natur- 
ally your country also benefits 
under all general schemes of Allied 
Relief. Last summer, for instance 
a great bazaar was held in New 
York in aid of Allied War Charities, 



GETTING TOGETHER 49 

and over half a million dollars 
were cleared . Another bazaar, held 
more recently in Boston, raised 
over four hundred thousand dollars. 
Another, in Chicago, was equally 
successful . And so the tale goes on. 
France and Belgium, of course, re- 
ceive the lion's share of American 
sympathy, as being invaded coun- 
tries, but I have told you enough 
to show what we are trying to 
do for Great Britain too. We are 
somewhat handicapped, however, 
by the fact, firstly, that Great 
Britain is not exactly what one 
would call a gracious receiver 
of benefits, and secondly, that the 
man in the street over here re- 
gards your country as too fabul- 
ously rich to require relief of any 
kind. But after all, it is the 



50 GETTING TOGETHER 

spirit of good will which counts, 
and you have all ours. 

"Well, the list which I have 
shown you will give you some 
idea of the big forces which are 
working for you over on this side. 
But big forces are made up of 
little forces. As we say in this 
country, it is the little things that 
tell. All over America I could 
show you little sewing meetings 
and social gatherings which have 
got together for the purpose of 
preparing clothing and medical 
comforts for the Allies. Even 
in cities like Milwaukee and 
Cincinnati, which have the repu- 
tation of being overwhelmingly 
Teutonic, there exist very efficient 
and plucky Allied Relief Societies 
which are carrying on in the 



GETTING TOGETHER 51 

face of open hostility. There 
is hardly a village or township 
that does not possess such a 
society. You have a song in Eng- 
land about 'Sister Susie Sewing 
Shirts for Soldiers.' Well, over 
here in the States, your cousin 
Susie is doing precisely the same 
thing. She is doing it so exten- 
sively that it has been found nec- 
essary to establish a great clear- 
ing house in New York to deal 
with the gifts as they come in, 
sort them out, and forward them 
to their destinations. The Clear- 
ing House also knows where to 
stretch out its hand for particu- 
lar commodities. For instance, if 
there is a shortage of absorbent 
cotton, the Clearing House sends 
an appeal to Virginia for some 



52 GETTING TOGETHER 

more, and Virginia sends it. Here 
is a copy of the monthly bulletin. 
They appear to have been busy. 
You notice that during one period 
of seven days last month, this 
Clearing House handled over a 
thousand cases of material a day. 

"Yes, a clearing-house like this 
calls for some organization and 
labour. Who supply that.^ A 
number of American business men, 
each of whom has decided to run 
his business with his left hand 
for the present, leaving his right 
hand free for War Relief. 

" Besides gifts in kind, these same 
organizations send gifts in money. 
Between seventy and eighty of 
the leading clubs in America have 
formulated a scheme under which 
members who feel so disposed may 



GETTING TOGETHER 53 

have five dollars or so debited 
to their monthly bill, to be de- 
voted to Allied Relief work. Dur- 
ing the last three months about 
eighty thousand dollars has been 
raised and distributed by the Clear- 
ing House from this source. 

"Our Relief work is both col- 
lective and individual. At one 
end of the scale you find a scheme 
for raising a hundred million dol- 
lars to maintain and educate Bel- 
gian and French orphans. At the 
other, I could show you a poor 
woman in Boston who is living 
on a mere pittance, because she 
gives every cent that she can 
possibly spare to Allied Relief. 
I know many American business 
men who cross the Atlantic several 
times a year: on these occasions 



54 GETTING TOGETHER 

they seldom fail to take with 
them, as part of their personal 
baggage, a trunk stuffed with 
surgical dressings, rare drugs, and 
the like. Again, do you know 
who presented to your nation St. 
Dunstan's, the great institution 
for blinded soldiers in Regent's 
Park, London? An American citi- 
zen. So you see, here we are, the 
American people, the greatest race 
of advertisers in the world, doing 
all this good work, and saying noth- 
ing whatever about it. Doesn't 
that strike you as significant .f^" 

"It strikes me as magnificent," 
says the Briton. 

"Well," rejoins the other, I 
don't allow that it is magnificent, 
but it is pretty good. We might 
do more — ten times more. For 



GETTING TOGETHER 55 

instance, all our contributions to 
Belgian relief don't amount to 
more than the merest fraction of 
what France and Great Britain, 
in the midst of all the agony and im- 
poverishment of their own people, 
have contrived to give. Still, I 
think I have said enough to show you 
that we are doing something. You'll 
tell the folks at home, won t you? 
It hurts us badly to be regarded 
as cold blooded opportunists." 

"Trust me; I'll tell them!" 
says the Briton warmly. 

And the Get-Together ends. 



CHAPTER FIVE 



CHAPTER FIVE 

The only fact of importance 
which fails to emerge with suf- 
ficient clearness from the fore- 
going conversation is the fact — 
possibly the courteous American 
suppressed it from motives of 
delicacy — that America is by com- 
parison more pro-Ally than pro- 
British. The fact is, the Amer- 
ican is on the side of right and 
justice in this War, and earnestly 
desires to see the Allied cause pre- 
vail; but he has a sub-conscious 
aversion to seeing slow-witted, seK- 
satisfied John Bull collect yet 
another scalp. American relations 

59 



60 GETTING TOGETHER 

with France, too, have always 
been of the most cordial nature; 
while America's very existence as 
a separate nation to-day is the 
fruit of a quarrel with England. 
In this regard it may be noted 
that American school history books 
are accustomed to paint the Eng- 
land of 1776 in unnecessarily lurid 
colours. The young Republic is 
depicted emerging, after a heroic 
struggle, from the clutches of a 
tyranny such as that wielded by 
the nobility of France in the pre- 
Re volution days. In sober fact, 
the secession of the American 
Colonies was brought about by a 
series of colossal blunders and 
impositions on the part of the 
most muddle-headed ministry that 
ever mismanaged the affairs of 



GETTING TOGETHER 61 

Great Britain — which is saying a 
good deal. It is probable that if 
the elder Pitt had lived a few years 
longer, the secession would never 
have occurred. It was only with 
the utmost reluctance that Wash- 
ington appealed to a decision by 
battle. In any case the fact re- 
mains, that while in an American 
school-book the war of 1776 is 
given first place, correctly enough, 
as marking the establishment of 
American nationality, it figures in 
the English school-book, with equal 
correctness, as a single regrettable 
incident in England's long and 
variegated Colonial history. It is 
well to bear these two points of 
view in mind. Naturally all this 
makes for degrees of comparison in 
America's attitude toward the 



62 GETTING TOGETHER 

Allies. One might extend the 
comparison to Russia, and more 
especially to Japan; but that, 
mercifully, is outside the scope of 
our present inquiry. 

To America, friendship with 
France is an historic tradition, 
as the Statue of Liberty attests, 
and rests upon the solid founda- 
tion of a common ideal — Repub- 
licanism. The tie between Amer- 
ica and Great Britain is the tie 
of a common (but rapidly dimin- 
ishing) blood-relationship; and, as 
every large family knows, blood- 
relationship carries with it the 
right to speak one's mind with 
refreshing freedom whenever dif- 
ferences of opinion arise within 
the family circle. But our ideal- 
ists have persistently overlooked 



GETTING TOGETHER 



63 



this handicap. They ding tena- 
ciously to the notion that it is 
easier to be friendly with your 
relations than with your friends; 
and that in dealing with your own 
kin, tact may be economized. 
"Blood is thicker than water," 
we proclaim to one another across 
the sea; "and we can therefore 
afford to be as rude to one another 
as we please." This principle 
suits the Briton admirably, be- 
cause he belongs to the elder and 
more thick-skinned branch of the 
clan. But it bears hardly upon a 
young, self-conscious, and adole- 
scent nation, which has not yet 
"found" itself as a whole; and 
which, though its native genius 
and genuine promise carry it far, 
still experiences a certain youthful 



64 GETTING TOGETHER 

diffidence under the supercilious 
condescension of the Old World. 

Our mutual relations are fur- 
ther complicated by the possession 
of a common language. 

In theory, a common tongue 
should be a bond of union be- 
tween nations — a channel for the 
interchange of great thoughts and 
friendly sentiments. In practice, 
what is it? 

Let us take a concrete example. 
Supposing an American woman 
and a Dutch woman live next 
door to one another in a New 
York suburb. As a rule they 
maintain friendly relations; but 
if at any time these relations be- 
come strained — say, over the en- 
croachments of depredatory chick- 
ens, or the obstruction of some 



GETTING TOGETHER 65 

one's ancient lights by the over- 
exuberance of some one else's 
laundry — the two ladies are en- 
abled to say the most dreadful 
things to one another without any 
one being a penny the worse. 
They do not understand one, an- 
another's language. But if they 
speak a common tongue, the words 
which pass when the most ephem- 
eral squabble arises stick and ran^ 
kle. 

Again, for many years the peo- 
ple of Great Britain were ex- 
tremely critical of Russia. Well- 
meaning stay-at-home gentlemen 
constantly rose to their feet in 
the House of Commons and made 
withering remarks on the subject 
of knouts, and Cossacks, and 
vodka. But they did no harm. 



66 GETTING TOGETHER 

The Russian people do not under- 
stand English. In the same way, 
Russians were probably accus- 
tomed to utter equally reliable 
criticisms of the home-life of Great 
Britain — land-grabbing, and hypo- 
crisy, and whiskey, and so on. 
But we knew nothing of all this, 
and all was well. There was not 
the slightest difficulty, when the 
great world-crash came, in form- 
ing the warmest alliance with 
Russia. 

But as between the two great 
English-speaking nations of the 
world, it is in the power of the 
most foolish politician or the most 
irresponsible sub-editor, on either 
side of the Atlantic, to create an 
international complication with a 
single spoken phrase or stroke of 



GETTING TOGETHER 67 

the pen. And as both countries 
appear to be inhabited very largely 
by persons who regard newspapers 
as Bibles and foolish politicians 
as inspired prophets, it seems 
advisable to take steps to regu- 
late the matter. 

This brings us to another matter 
— the attitude of the American 
Press toward the War. A cer- 
tain section thereof, which need 
not be particularized further, has 
never ceased, probably under the 
combined influences of bias and 
subsidy, to abuse the Allies, par- 
ticularly the British, and misre- 
present their motives and ideals. 
This sort of journalism ''cuts no 
ice" in the United States. It is 
just "yellow journalism." Voila 
tout ! Why take it seriously? But 



68 GETTING TOGETHER 

the British people do not know 
this; and as the British half- 
penny Press, when it does quote 
the American Press, rarely quotes 
anything but the most virulent 
extracts from this particular class 
of newspaper, one is reduced yet 
again to wondering whence the 
blessings of a common language 
are to be derived. 

But taking them all round, the 
newspapers of America have han- 
dled the questions of the War 
with conspicuous fairness and abil- 
ity. They are all fundamentally 
pro- Ally; and the only criticism 
which can be directed at them 
from an Allied quarter is that in 
their anxiety to give both sides a 
hearing, they have been a little too 
indulgent to Germany's claims to 



GETTING TOGETHER 69 

moral consideration, and have been 
a little over-inclined to accept the 
German Chancellor's pious mani- 
festoes at their face value. But 
generally speaking it may be said 
that the greater the newspaper, 
the firmer the stand that it has 
taken for the Allied cause. The 
New York Times, the weightiest 
and most authoritative newspaper 
in America, has been both pro- 
Ally and pro-British throughout 
the War, and has never shrunk 
from the delicate task of interpre- 
ting satisfactorily to the British 
people the attitude of the Presi- 
dent. 

Journalistic criticism of Great 
Britain in America is frequently 
extremely candid, and not alto- 
gether unmerited. Occasionally it 



70 GETTING TOGETHER 

goes too far; but the occasion 
usually arises from ignorance of 
the situation, or the desire to 
score an epigrammatic point. For 
instance, during the struggle for 
Verdun in the spring, a New York 
newspaper, sufficiently well-con- 
ducted to have known better, 
published a cartoon representing 
John Bull as standing aloof, but 
encouraging the French to per- 
severe in their efforts by parody- 
ing Nelson's phrase: — "England 
expects that every Frenchman will 
do his duty." The truth of course 
was that Sir Douglas Haig had 
offered General Joffre all the Bri- 
tish help that might be required. 
The offer was accepted to this 
extent, that the British took over 
forty additional miles of trenches 



GETTING TOGETHER 71 

from the French, thus setting 
free many divisions of French 
soldiers to participate in a glorious 
and purely French victory. 

But this sort of foolish calumny 
dies hard, together with such 
phrases as: — "England is pre- 
pared to hold on, to the last 
Frenchman!" While not strictly 
relevant to our present discus- 
sion, the following figures may be 
of interest. In August 1914 the 
British Regular Army consisted 
of about a hundred and fifty 
thousand men. To-day, British 
troops in France number two mil- 
lion; in Salonica, a hundred and 
forty thousand; in Egypt, a hun- 
dred and eighty thousand; in Meso- 
potamia, a hundred and twenty 
thousand. The Navy absorbs an- 



72 GETTING TOGETHER 

other four hundred thousand, while 
a full million are occupied in 
purely naval construction and re- 
pair. And at home again enor- 
mous masses of new troops are 
undergoing training. This seems 
to dispose of the suggestion that 
Great Britain is winning the War 
by proxy. 

And for the upkeep of this 
mighty host, and for this general 
comforting of the Allies, the Bri- 
tish taxpayer is now paying cheer- 
fully and willingly, in addition 
to such trifling impositions as a 60 
per cent tax on his commercial 
profits, income tax at the rate of 
twenty-five cents in the dollar. 

On the other side of the ac- 
count, Life^ the American equiv- 
alent of Punchy (if it is possible 



GETTING TOGETHER 73 

for the humour of a particu- 
lar nation to find its equivalent 
in any other nation), published 
not long ago a special "John 
Bull" number, which will for ever 
remain a monument of journalistic 
generosity and international cour- 
tesy. Life's good deed was grace- 
fully acknowledged by Punch and 
The Spectator. 

But in spite of Life's good ex- 
ample, enough has been said under 
this head to illuminate the fact 
that a common language is a 
doubtful blessing. The joint pos- 
session of the tongue that Shakes- 
peare and Milton and Longfellow 
and Abraham Lincoln spoke has 
bestowed little upon our two na- 
tions but a convenient medium, 
too often, for shrewish alterca- 



74 GETTING TOGETHER 

tion, coupled with the profound 
conviction of either side that the 
other side is unable to speak cor- 
rect English. 

Well, this nonsense must stop. 



CHAPTER SIX 



CHAPTER SIX 

Therefore, whenever a true Amer- 
ican and a true Briton get to- 
gether, let them hold an inter- 
national symposium of their own. 
If it were not for the unfortunate 
interposition of the Atlantic Ocean, 
this interview would be extended, 
with proportional profit, to the 
greatest symposium the world has 
ever seen. Meanwhile, we will 
make shift with a company of 
two. 

The following counsel is re- 
spectfully offered to the partici- 
pants in the debate. 

Let the Briton remember: — 

77 



78 GETTING TOGETHER 

1. Remember you are talking 
to a friend, 

2. Remember you are talking to 
a man who regards his nation as 
the greatest nation in the world. 
He will probably tell you this. 

3. Remember you are talking 
to a man whose country has made 
an enormous contribution to your 
cause in men, material, and money, 
besides putting up with a good deal 
of inconvenience and irksome super- 
vision at your hands. Remem- 
ber, too, that your own country 
has made little or no acknowledge- 
ment of its indebtedness in this 
matter. 

4. Remember you are talking to 
a man who believes in "publicity," 
and who believes further, that if 
you do not advertise the fact, 



GETTING TOGETHER 79 

you cannot possibly be in pos- 
session of "the goods." So for 
any sake open up a little, and 
tell him all you can about what 
the British Nation is doing to- 
day for Humanity and Civiliza- 
tion — in other words, for America. 

5. Remember this man is not 
so impervious to criticism as you 
are. Don't over-criticize his ap- 
parent attitude to the War, Re- 
member you are talking to a man 
whose patience under such outrages 
as the sinking of the Lusitania 
has been strained to the utter- 
most; so don't ask him whether he 
is too proud to fight, or he may 
offer you convincing proof to the 
contrary. 

6. Remember you are talking 
to a man whose business has been 



80 GETTING TOGETHER 

considerably interfered with by 
the stringency of the AlHed block- 
ade. So don't invite him to 
wax enthusiastic over the vigil- 
ance of the British Navy or the 
promptness of the Censor in put- 
ting the mails through. 

7. And do try to disabuse the 
man's mind of the preposterous, 
Germany -fostered notion that your 
country regards this war merely 
as a vehicle for commercial ag- 
grandizement, or that the British 
Foreign Office proposes to main- 
tain the Black List and other bug- 
bears after the War. It seems 
absurd that you should have to 
give such an assurance, but doubts 
upon the subject certainly exist in 
certain quarters in America to-day. 

Let the American remember: 



GETTING TOGETHER 81 

1. Remember you are talking to 

a friend, 

2. Remember you are talking to 
a man who regards his nation as 
the greatest in the world. He 
will not tell you this, because he 
takes it for granted that you know 

already. 

3. Remember you are talkmg 
to a man who is a member of a 
traditionally reticent and unex- 
pansive race; who says about one 
third of what he feels; who is 
obsessed by a mania for under- 
stating his country's case, exag- 
gerating its weaknesses, and be- 
littling its efforts; who is secretly 
shy, so covers up his shyness with 
a cloak of aggressiveness which 
is offensive to those who are not 
prepared for it. Remember that 



82 GETTING TOGETHER 

this attitude is not specially as- 
sumed for you: as often as not 
the man employs it toward his 
own wife, who rather enjoys it, 
because she regards it as a symptom 
of affection. 

4. Remember you are talking 
to a man who is fighting for his 
life. To-day his face is turned 
toward Central Europe, and his 
back to the United States. Do 
not expect him to display an 
intimate or sympathetic under- 
standing of America's true atti- 
tude to the War. He is conduct- 
ing the War according to his 
lights, and is prepared to abide 
by the consequences of what he 
does. So he is apt to be resentful 
of criticism. Bear with him, for 
he is having a tough time of it. 



GETTING TOGETHER 83 

5. Enemy propaganda to the 
contrary, remember that this man 
is not a hypocrite. He is oc- 
casionally stupid; he is at times 
obstinate; he is frequently high- 
handed; and often he would rather 
be misunderstood than explain. 
But he is neither tyrannical nor 
corrupt. He went into this War 
because he felt it his duty to do 
so, and not because he coveted 
any Teutonic vineyard. 

6. Remember that your nation 
has done a great deal for this 
man's nation during the War. 
Tell him all about it: it will 
interest him, because he did not 
know. 



CHAPTER SEVEN 



CHAPTER SEVEN 

Practically every one in this 
world improves on closer acquaint- 
ance. The people with whom we 
utterly fail to agree are those with 
whom we never get into close 
touch. 

Individual Americans and Brit- 
ons, when they get together in 
one country or the other, usually 
develope a genuine mutual liking. 
As nations, however, their attitude 
to one another is too often a distant 
attitude — a distance of some three 
thousand miles, or the exact width 
of the Atlantic Ocean — and ranges 
from a lofty tolerance in good times 

87 



88 GETTING TOGETHER 

to unreserved bickering in bad. 
Why? Because they are geograph- 
ically too far apart. But with the 
shrinkage of the earth's surface 
produced by the effects of elec- 
tricity and steam, that geographi- 
cal abyss yawns much less widely 
than it did. So let us get together, 
whether in couples or in millions. 
The thing has to be done. No re- 
arrangement of the world's affairs 
after the War can be either just 
or equitable or permanent which 
does not find Great Britain and 
the United States of America upon 
the same side. What we want is 
common ground, and a sound 
basis of understanding. Our pre- 
sent basis — the " Hands-across-the 
-Sea, Blood-is-thicker-than- Water 
basis — is sloppy and unstable. Be- 



GETTING TOGETHER 89 

sides, it profoundly irritates that 
not inconsiderable section of the 
American people which does not 
happen to be of British descent. 

We can find a better basis than 
that. What shall it he? Well, 
we have certain common ideals 
which rest upon no sentimental 
foundations, but upon the bed- 
rock of truth and justice. We 
both believe in God; in personal 
liberty; in a Law which shall be 
inflexibly just to rich and poor 
alike. We both hate tyranny and 
oppression and intrigue; and we 
both love things which are clean, 
and wholesome, and of good re- 
port. Let us take one common 
stand upon these. 

We must take certain precau- 
tions. We must bear and for- 



90 GETTING TOGETHER 

bear. We must forget a good 
deal that Is past. We must make 
allowances for point of view and 
differences of temperament. And 
we must mutually and heroically 
refrain from utilizing the unri- 
valled opportunities for repartee 
and pettiness afforded by the pos- 
session of a common tongue. 

Of course, we must not expect 
or attempt to work together in 
unison. National differences of 
character and standpoint forbid. 
And no bad thing either. Unison 
is a cramping and irksome business. 
Let us work in harmony instead, 
which is far better. And so — to 
paraphrase the deathless words of 
the greatest of Americans: — With 
charity toward all, with malice 
toward none, with mutual under- 



GETTING TOGETHER 91 

standing and confidence, we shall 
go forward together, to bind up 
the wounds of the world, and 
prevent for all time a repetition 
of the outrage which inflicted them. 




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